Dept. of Homeland Security: Laptops, Phones Can Be Searched Based on Hunches

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer reads the X-ray of a laptop computer that rides in a new style bin for carry-ons at the Checkpoint Evolution prototype at Baltimore-Washington International Airport's security screening checkpoint B in the Southwest terminal on April 28, 2008. The checkpoint is calm and quiet with officers wearing headsets to keep radio traffic down and new inspection machines and proceedures. AFP PHOTO/Paul J. RICHARDS (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.

The 23-page report, obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, provides a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s thinking on the long-standing but controversial practice of border agents and immigration officers searching and in some cases holding for weeks or months the digital devices of anyone trying to enter the U.S.

Since his election, President Barack Obama has taken an expansive view of legal authorities in the name of national security, asserting that he can order the deaths of U.S. citizens abroad who are suspected of terrorism without involvement by courts, investigate reporters as criminals and — in this case — read and copy the contents of computers carried by U.S. travelers without a good reason to suspect wrongdoing.

The DHS study, dated December 2011, said the border searches do not violate the First or Fourth amendments, which prohibit restrictions on speech and unreasonable searches and seizures. It specifically objected to a tougher standard in a 1986 government policy that allowed for only cursory review of a traveler’s documents.

“We do not believe that this 1986 approach, or a reasonable suspicion requirement in any other form, would improve current policy,” the report said. “Officers might hesitate to search an individual’s device without the presence of articulable factors capable of being formally defended, despite having an intuition or hunch based on experience that justified a search.” It added: “An on-the-spot perusal of electronic devices following the procedures established in 1986 could well result in a delay of days or weeks.”

The Homeland Security report was prepared by its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

The U.S. government has always maintained that anything a person carries across the border — a backpack, a laptop, or anything hidden in a person’s body — is fair game to be searched as a means of keeping drugs, child pornography and other dangerous goods out of the country, and to enforce import laws. But as more Americans enter the U.S. with sophisticated computers, thumb drives, smartphones, cameras and other electronic devices that hold vast amounts of information about who they are and how they conduct business, privacy rights advocates have pressed for more checks on such authority, particularly if digital files are copied and shared with other federal agencies, such as the FBI.

According to the government study, 685 of roughly 50 million travelers entering the U.S. in 2009 and 2010 were subject to electronic device searches. Of those searched, 41 devices were held by the government.

The ACLU, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and other groups have sued to stop the practice, saying that it violates First and Fourth amendment rights. They say allowing agents to act on a hunch encourages racial profiling. Some activists say they also worry that the FBI and other federal investigators are using laptop searches at the border to collect intelligence on terror and criminal suspects without judicial checks.

Catherine Crump, the ACLU lawyer who first requested the report, said it is the first detailed explanation of why the government believes it doesn’t need a reason to open a laptop or storage device and download files for further review. She described as inadequate the government’s argument that imposing a legal threshold to perform such searches would lead to lawsuits.

“A person’s digital life ought not be hijacked simply by crossing a border,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the appeals court majority in March.

But the ruling involving Howard Cotterman, whose laptop contained hundreds of hidden child pornography files when he crossed the Arizona-Mexico border in 2007, only applies to the states within the appeals court’s jurisdiction, including Arizona, California and Alaska. The ruling also left some confusion as to what constitutes a comprehensive search.

Another case, involving Islamic studies student Pascal Abidor, whose laptop was detained for 11 days along the Canadian border, is still pending in a federal district court in New York.